The independent power producers that became one of the equity market's most crowded artificial-intelligence proxies suffered a severe reversal Monday. Constellation Energy (CEG) fell 6.82% to $265.34, ranking among the steepest declines in the large-capitalization universe. The stock opened at $276.52, which also marked the session high, and closed the morning near its $264.32 low — the profile of persistent, one-directional selling rather than a volatility spike.
Vistra (VST) followed, dropping 4.33% to $141.95 after opening at $144.00 and reaching $145.25. NextEra Energy (NEE), whose regulated utility base gives it a more conventional earnings profile, declined a comparatively modest 0.37% to $82.01 — a spread that isolates the selling to the merchant-power names most directly levered to data-center contracting.
The Thesis Under Pressure
The investment case for these companies rested on a specific chain of reasoning: artificial-intelligence workloads require enormous electricity volumes, that demand would be contracted at premium prices under long-dated power purchase agreements, and merchant generators with existing baseload capacity — particularly nuclear — would capture the resulting margin.
Monday's tape questioned every link in that chain simultaneously. The selloff arrived alongside a broad de-rating of artificial-intelligence infrastructure: Micron Technology (MU) fell 5.69%, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) dropped 4.93%, Broadcom (AVGO) declined 4.12% and Oracle (ORCL) lost 4.32%. Caterpillar (CAT